Sunrise Key 3 - Otherwise Engaged

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Zander turned his wide blue eyes from Pres to Molly. "And you don't think Mom's the right person?"

  Molly closed her eyes. "Zander . . ."

  "Your mom and I don't really know each other that well." Pres glanced up at Molly, a glint of humor in his eyes. "She's pointed that out to me on at least one occasion, and you know, I think she's probably right."

  "So you might get married, after you know each other," Zander concluded.

  "Zander, if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath," Molly said. "It's highly unlikely that's going to happen."

  "But it's not impossible. Nothing's impossible. You say that all the time." Zander turned back to Pres. "So what happened to Simon?"

  Molly mouthed the words I'm sorry, to Pres, but he just smiled.

  "Okay," he said, getting back to his story. "Simon and I are down at about a hundred and twenty feet, and I know we're in big trouble. We're close to the limit for a no-decompression dive and—remember what I told you about all the time limits for divers because of the water pressure, and how if you dive past a certain depth, you need to take your time coming back to the surface to decompress?"

  "Or you'll get the bends," Zander said.

  "Right."

  Molly backed away. "I'll be up at the house."

  "We'll be there in a sec." Pres barely even glanced at her this time, turning back to Zander, who was thoroughly enthralled in the story. "So we're down too deep, and Simon is hyperventilating, which means he's using up his air supply way too quickly and my dive computer is flashing all kinds of warning signals. We've already been down there too long. To be completely honest, Zander, I was more scared than I've ever been before in my entire life."

  Molly couldn't help but listen, fascinated and horrified despite herself. She stood quietly by the gate to the pool and watched Pres talk to her son.

  "So I make the calculations," Pres told Zander, "and I realize we're in big trouble. Even without Simon breathing too fast, we don't have enough air to get to the surface with all the decompression stops we'll need. And on top of that I can't get Simon calmed down. We're underwater, and I can't talk to him."

  "If I learned sign language, and Simon learned sign language, then we could talk under water," Pres signed to Zander. "It would've been easy to calm Simon down if we knew sign language," he said aloud.

  Molly had to sit down.

  She reached blindly behind her for a lounge chair and sat, staring at Pres in disbelief. How had he managed to learn so much sign language so quickly? Sure, he'd told them that he wanted to learn, but . . .

  She'd thought he was just making polite noise, that sign language was one of those things he'd like to learn but would never find the time for. She hadn't believed him. She hadn't thought he was serious. Obviously he was.

  "And when we made our way back to the hundred-foot mark," Pres was telling Zander, "there was the rest of our dive team, waiting for us with spare tanks. Thanks to them, we made it to the surface, took our time, had plenty of air, and nobody got bent."

  "Cool," Zander said, awe in his voice.

  "You know what the moral of that story is?" Pres asked.

  Zander shook his head.

  "Never, ever dive alone, and if possible, dive in teams of more than two."

  Zander nodded reverently, as if Pres had just imparted some incredible gem of wisdom.

  Pres smiled at Zander. "I think it's homework time now."

  Zander glanced quickly back at Molly. "Yeah. I guess."

  "Do you have a lot?"

  Another glance at Molly. "I don't know. Not too much."

  "Will you be okay, hanging out here while Molly and I go for a walk?"

  Zander nodded. "Sure." He started to dash past Molly, but skidded to a stop. "Mom, can I have a snack?"

  "Yes." He was gone before the word was out of her mouth.

  Pres unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and folded it into his mouth as he approached Molly at a much slower pace. She stood up, still incredulous.

  "I can't believe you're really learning to sign. When? How? I'm speechless."

  Pres smiled. "You can't be speechless . . ." he said, then signed, ". . . if you know sign language."

  His hands were graceful, his fingers long and really quite beautiful. Somehow they managed to be both elegant and work-roughened—just like the man himself.

  "Considering that you've been avoiding me since Saturday night, and I've had a whole lot of free time, I took advantage of the opportunity and got some books about signing. And Zander's been teaching me too."

  "I haven't been avoiding you," Molly protested. "At least, not exactly ..."

  "Let's walk." He took her hand with an easy familiarity, and together they started down the path that led to the beach. He glanced over his shoulder at her. "What's on your agenda? I got the sense that this was going to be a talk with a capital T."

  "About tonight . . ."

  "Can't avoid me tonight, Molly. There's no way you can cancel. We've got a guest list of over five hundred people."

  "Five hundred?"

  "Roughly."

  "I'm not going to cancel. I'm just . . . nervous."

  As they reached the open sand of the beach, Pres slipped his arm around her shoulders so that they were walking arm in arm. "I'll be there, right next to you the entire time."

  "That's what's making me nervous."

  She fit perfectly against him. Whether they were dancing or walking or even kissing, they were a near-perfect match. She tried to put some space between them, but he wouldn't let her go.

  "Uh-oh, photographers, dead ahead," he murmured. He tugged Molly toward him, covering her mouth with his in a lingering kiss.

  His mouth was as sweet as she remembered. And she did remember. Vividly. In fact, she'd been dreaming about his kisses now for three nights running. Kisses, and more.

  "That's why I've been avoiding you," she admonished him breathlessly.

  "Aha, so you admit it. You have been avoiding me."

  She turned to face him. "You want the truth?"

  For a fraction of a second Pres considered saying no. No, he didn't want to know the truth. He had a feeling that it wasn't going to be something he wanted to hear. But he nodded. "Yes. Please. Tell me the truth."

  "I like you too much," she told him bluntly. "I'm afraid I'm going to do something really stupid, like sleep with you."

  This wasn't a bad truth. This was a good truth. A very, very good truth. "Would that be so terrible?"

  Molly looked down at her bare feet as she scratched a line into the sand with one toe. She didn't need to answer, he could see it on her face. Yes, it would be terrible.

  But she was wrong, and he was determined to convince her otherwise.

  Pres reached for her hand and they began to walk again, the photographers slowly trailing along about fifty yards behind them, just far enough away to give them the illusion of privacy.

  Molly glanced up at him. "I almost called you back yesterday."

  "I wish you had."

  She squinted slightly as she gazed out over the sparkling blue ocean. The wind swept her hair into her face, and she used her other hand to brush it out of her eyes. "Zander and I went to the library, and while we were there the librarian told us that the most wonderful thing has happened—an anonymous donor gave a present to the library in the form of five thousand compact discs—along with shelves to store them."

  Pres didn't even try to deny that he was the mysterious donor. "You told me you didn't want me to give Zander such a big gift, so I did the next best thing. I gave it to the public library. This way, he has access to a huge collection of music, and I haven't overstepped your boundaries."

  "You're amazing," Molly said, but the tone of her voice wasn't quite admiration. "You don't take no for an answer, do you? When someone tells you no, you don't give up. You find another solution and somehow manage to get your way."

  "You say that as if that's something bad."

  Molly stopped walking,
turning toward him. "It's not—at least not in this case. Giving the library an extensive CD collection was a wonderful idea. I know how expensive it must've been, and I thank you for that. But . . ." She took a deep breath. "I find myself wondering about the other things I've said no to. You wanted to buy the Kirk Estate and I said no. You invited me back to your room and I said no. I can't help but think that sooner or later, despite my saying no, you're going to get what you want."

  God, he hoped so. But he didn't dare say those words aloud. He glanced over his shoulder at the photographers and they started walking again, but Molly persisted.

  "I got a very interesting phone call today," she continued. "From someone named Simon Hunt, from the Sunrise Key Historical Society—which, incidentally and quite oddly, didn't seem to exist before just a few days ago."

  Pres knew what was coming.

  "Simon Hunt," she repeated, looking up at him. "That wouldn't be the same Simon from the scuba-diving story you were telling Zander, would it?"

  "It would."

  "Of course. I'm happy to hear he's survived until now. Anyway, Mr. Hunt informed me that the Kirk Estate has been awarded a restoration grant to the tune of one hundred thousand dollars."

  "Congratulations."

  "As if you didn't know about it," Molly accused him. "As if you weren't the sole financial backer behind this so-called Sunrise Key Historical Society."

  "If you're going to restore the Kirk Estate, you should do it right."

  "Which means doing it your way," she countered. "Right?"

  "I happen to believe that restoration involves reusing as much of the original materials as possible and—"

  "I was sent a copy of the grant," Molly said. "The fine print said that any restoration done on the house would need to be approved by a liaison from the historical society. Gee, I wonder who that will turn out to be?"

  "It'll be me."

  "Big surprise. The grant also mentioned a teeny little detail about the resale of the house. According to the agreement, if I accept the grant money, I have to give the Sunrise Key Historical Society and its benefactor the right of first refusal if I ever decide to sell." She gazed steadily at him. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you're not the benefactor."

  Pres looked her in the eye. "You're absolutely right. I'm the benefactor."

  "And according to this grant, I'll need to get your approval even if I want to replace something as trivial as the grout around a loose tile in the bathroom . . . ?" Her voice rang with disbelief.

  "Believe it or not, there are different types of grout that were used depending on—"

  "Dear Lord, I knew it! If I accept this grant, I'll end up restoring this entire house with your money, your way. With you breathing down my neck the entire time." Molly pulled her hand away from his and began walking rapidly back toward the house.

  Pres caught up with her easily. "Would that really be so terrible? Working closely with me that way?"

  Molly spun to face him, and he nearly tripped over her. "Maybe you could clear up one thing that I'm not certain of here," she said, spitting fire. "Are you using the house to try to sleep with me, or are you trying to sleep with me to get a hold of the house?"

  Pres couldn't help it. He had to laugh, and unfortunately, that only made her more furious. He caught her arm before she could run away again, and got real serious, real fast.

  "Molly, come on. Wait. I don't even want your house anymore." As he spoke the words he realized that they were the truth. He didn't want the Kirk Estate.

  Molly glanced toward the photographers and lowered her voice. "And you expect me just to believe you."

  "Yeah," he said. "I don't want to buy your house, because I want you and Zander to stay here on Sunrise Key."

  Molly stared at Pres. Her burst of anger was fading fast, leaving behind a swirl of other emotions. They were strange emotions that mixed peculiarly with the remnants of the anger—something that felt remarkably like pleasure and this odd fluttering sensation of anticipation in her stomach.

  "If I buy your house," he continued, "then you'll leave. And I don't want you to leave."

  She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But the grant . . ."

  "Right of first refusal is pretty much standard boilerplate in this kind of private funding," Pres told her. "At least that's what my lawyer told me."

  "So you're just giving me a hundred thousand dollars ....?"

  "It's tax-deductible."

  "Oh, that explains it."

  Molly couldn't handle this—not what she was hearing and especially not what she was feeling. She went down to the water and stood with the gentle Gulf waves lapping over her feet. Pres followed, as she knew he would, but she couldn't look at him. She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to feel her insides start to melt when he flashed her one of his killer smiles. She didn't want to feel the quickening of anticipation when he brushed against her. She didn't want her heart to race when she gazed into his eyes.

  "What exactly do you want from me, Pres?" she asked. She wasn't brave enough to turn her head and meet his gaze.

  Pres didn't answer right away. It should have been a simple question. He wanted her. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted her to be his lover.

  He wanted a cigarette. He forcefully pushed that thought away.

  Yes, he wanted to be Molly's lover, but he also wanted more. He'd known for days, when every time he called she made some excuse not to see him. He'd known when every time he'd dropped by, she'd asked him to stay with Zander for a few hours while she ran some errands. He'd known the truth. This was about more than mere sex.

  He wanted to be with Molly, to talk with her, to make her laugh, to watch her smile. He wanted to share more with her than passion in bed. He wanted to share her joy and love for Zander, and even her pain of knowing her son's deafness was worsening little by little, day by day. He wanted to share her life, to commingle it with his life, so neither of them would ever be alone again. He wanted a family. He wanted that ring he'd put on Molly's finger to be real.

  He wanted too much, too soon.

  Too much, too soon—that described his short affair and rushed marriage with Merrilee Fender. That had been a total disaster. There was no way he was going to make that same mistake again.

  That was why he hadn't pushed when over the past few days Molly had repeatedly turned down his dinner invitations. Although hot and heavy best described his impulsive style when it came to both his personal and business life, Pres was trying his hardest to follow Molly's lead and take whatever this was they shared between them extremely slowly.

  After all, he'd been wrong before.

  What did he want from her? she'd asked. He brought it all down to the simplest equation. "You know what I want. I want to see where this thing between us can go."

  She nodded slowly, still looking out at the ocean, where the gleaming white sails of a boat moved slowly across the horizon. "You know damn well that the first place it would go is right into your bed."

  "I can't deny that I want to make love to you," he said evenly. "You know that I do."

  "So this is about sex," Molly said. "And the hundred-thousand-dollar grant is supposed to be some kind of billionaire-style foreplay?"

  Pres couldn't help but laugh. "No."

  "Then is it some kind of payment?"

  He turned her to face him. "Of course not. One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other."

  "I find that hard to believe—combined with the huge gift you gave to the library." Molly met his eyes squarely. "Not to mention that amazingly expensive dress and shoes you sent to the house for me to wear to the party tonight. And I stopped in at Dr. Devlin's office this morning to pick up some forms for the school, and he told me you'd been by, asking all kinds of questions about degenerative hearing loss. You went to see the doctor because you thought maybe there was some ultraexpensive operation you could buy to make Zander all better, right?"

  Pres couldn't deny it. "Yes,
but—"

  "I wish there were," Molly said. "But God help me, if there were, I would have already found a way for Zander to have that operation, regardless of the cost. Money isn't the solution to every problem, Pres. Believe it or not, there are some things money can't buy."

  "I know that—"

  "And I'm one of them. I'm not going to accept the historical society's grant."